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Seven Years in Tibet
: I still remember the old copy of that book in my grandfather's house in Graz, Austria (also the place of Harrer's university years) that I subsequently read a couple of times and always enjoyed the total immersion in the adventures of my countryman. Later, when I grew up, I got to know Harrer in Huettenberg, his hometown in Carinthia where he had installed a small museum about his travels and, of course, his Tibetan years and got even more fascinated by this man and his adventures (so much, in fact, that I had to go to Switzerland and climb the Eiger; however, I haven't been to Tibet yet). Thus I was predetermined to go and watch the movie and re-read the book another time. Again I got caught in the tremendous power of the story and read through the whole book in one night (in German, though). My advice: go and read the book, whether or not you know the movie.
This is a great book that brings the world community's attention to China's continued occupation and atrocities in Tibet. Chinese rulers continue to insist (with a straight face) that their conquest of Tibet is an "internal affair of the Chinese state". This is perhaps just another piece of evidence that China poses the greatest threat to regional/global security in the coming decades.
This book combines the best of travelogue, adventure, inspiration, history, and anthropology into a one-sitting read. A primer for fans of travelogue, this amazing account follows one man's trials as a German climber in British India at the outset of WWI through the end of the war up to the Chinese takeover in Tibet, where he had befriended the young Dalai Lama. A look back at a snapshot of a world which barely exists, one is amazed by how far humanity has come since this book was written nearly 40 years ago.
People who enjoyed this book would also like "My Journey to Lhasa" by Alexandra David-Neel an adventurer who traveled to Lhasa 20 years before Harrer.
You have got to read this book. It is so good. It starts out with the description of an escaped German POW's travels through fuedal Tibet, then onto the Forbidden City of Lhasa, and finally the teaching of the Dalai Lama himself! Then he is forced to flee through the 18000 foot valleys of the Roof of the World before the rampaging Chinese. This book is touching emotionally, in the fact that it shows the life of a vibrant people and culture so tragically snuffed out. It is a wonderful advernture story, and if you enjoy reading about exotic religions, forbidden cities, inhospitable land, and god-kings, then this is the book for you.
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